Electro-mechanical actuators are commonly used to unlatch doors in cars that have been styled to cover up the outside door handles. In the styling trade they are known as “poppers”, and their primary purpose is to achieve a sleek appearance by eliminating the outside door handles. Their application to the tailgate of a pickup truck has been limited due to the resulting crash opening of the tailgate. Unlike the doors of a car, which are hinged vertically, tailgates are hinged horizontally along the bottom edge. Once a car door is unlatched, the door merely cracks open and remains in the cracked position until it is fully opened or closed manually. Once a tailgate is unlatched however, the spring loaded latch bolts flip it out, and gravity then pulls to the fully open position. Due to the heavy weight of the tailgate, typically exceeding 50 pounds, the ensuing crash is quite violent, like a drop hammer in nature, prone to damaging the truck, and potentially lethal to any bystander, child or pet.